HighGrade, Mining Business Media join forces
January 25 - 31, 2012
HIGHGRADE, Australasia’s weekly mining e-magazine, has entered into a joint venture with Mining Business Media, run by experienced mining and industry journalists John Feary and Mark Mentiplay, to market and promote MBM’s international mining news service.
Mine closure volume fills a void
January 25 - 31, 2012
MINE Pit Lakes: Closure and Management, recently compiled by Clint McCullough and published by the Australian Centre for Geomechanics, provides an excellent overview of an important topic.
How the JORC and Valmin codes work
December 15 - 21, 2011
THERE is movement at the station with respect to the JORC Code, as has been evidenced by the recent discussion documents provided by the JORC Committee and the ASX initiatives on related matters. There are changes afoot with the VALMIN Code too, as evidenced by recent seminars. With the publication of his article in HighGrade, Dr Graham Lumley has made a timely contribution. No serious practitioner is unaware of the error introduced to ore reserve estimation by underestimating costs.
More must buy into JORC discussion
December 15 - 21, 2011
STEVE Gemell writes a well-constructed contribution about the Valmin Code and JORC Code. I, like him, am interested in more industry people contributing to this HighGrade discussion and taking the time to respond to the issues papers released by JORC and the ASX.
Complexity adds to evaluation challenge
November 24 - 30, 2011
I READ with interest Dr Lumley’s article which raises many issues where new evaluation methodology may assist. Capital investment decision making and risk management in the mining industry are becoming increasingly more complex.
Nuclear meltdown
October 27 - November 2, 2011
THE ongoing problem that the uranium industry is going to face is that – unlike Chernobyl – the Fukushima disaster has occurred in the middle of a developed nation where access to information and the ability to communicate information is at the fingertips of basically everyone.
New face of mine machine monitoring
October 20 - 26, 2011
I JUST wanted to add to comments about Geoff Baldwin and his development of the Tritronics dragline monitor.
Iron doom? Not from where we're standing
October 13 - 19, 2011
NO GREAT surprise hearing Australia’s new crop of iron ore miners and contenders confident they’ve little to be concerned about with regards the big production increases planned by the heavyweights of the sector in the years ahead. Still, there’s acknowledgement in some quarters that time is, as always, of the essence.
Rocks, stocks and economics: never the twain shall meet
July 28 - August 3, 2011
‘GOLD's great divide’ (HighGrade July 14-20, 2011) was a very interesting article. I like the author’s explanation of the difference between the behaviour of gold bullion and gold stocks. I have no expertise or view on the gold market price but am heavily involved (through Whittle Consulting Money Mining courses and Enterprise Optimisation studies) in helping mining companies improve their economic performance, which you would think would have a direct impact on stock values.
Project value confusion reigns
June 30 - July 6, 2011
I BELIEVE there is a bit of confusion about the different processes used by mine planners and analysts to estimate (determine) the current (present) value of a mine project, the so called net present value (NPV). This has also carried on into confusion about the concepts of discounted cash flow (DCF) and other advanced valuation methods such as real options. As a matter of fact all techniques such as the DCF and ROs output both an estimate and a distribution of NPV for the project (it depends on the analyst which statistic to use). However, there are a couple of differences that need to be understood.
Reader letters: don’t shoot the (NPV) messenger; mine planning gap can be filled
June 16 - 22, 2011
I FULLY support the main thrust of the article, ‘Flawed assumptions and nasty surprises: why we need to get smarter at assessing risk’, by Eddy Solbrandt (HighGrade, June 9-15, 2011), that “as an industry, we need to identify and fully evaluate the impact of risks on mining strategies”.
The politics of death
June 9 - 15, 2011
BETWEEN 2000 and 2010 about 10,000 people were killed worldwide by All-Terrain-Vehicles (ATVs). In Australia about 15 ATV drivers die each year, mostly in rollovers on farms. Arguably this could be addressed by fitting Rollover Protection Systems (ROPS), but there seems little will to legislate this. By comparison there were four mining fatalities in 2007-08 and 14 the previous year, the latest data on the MCA website. So, more people die in ATV rollovers than in the entire mining industry. But what gets the media and legislative attention?
Not letting facts get in the way of a good political narrative
June 9 - 15, 2011
HANDS up who else was miffed when the self-proclaimed guru of all things to do with climate, Professor Ross Garnaut, said that anyone who didn’t come to the conclusion that “of course” temperatures were increasing and “of course” it was human induced was ignorant. We stand up and say that schoolyard bullying is wrong but bullying of the population by politicians and those living off the tax you and I are paying is okay.
Mining no different, really
May 26 - June 1, 2011
Dear Editor
I was sitting next to David Hattrick when he asked the question regarding other industries (HighGrade, Rio Tinto boss rebuts oracle, May 19-25 edition) and the discourse was very interesting.
The guy who kicked the hornet’s nest
April 7 - 13, 2011
NEWCREST Mining boss Ian Smith’s speech in Canberra about the challenges ahead for the Australian mining industry, and Australia, has drawn plenty of feedback. Here is a selection of the responses so far.
HighGrade Thought Leader Series: Management vs Analysts feedback
February 2 - 8, 2011
WHEN a mining project is announced to the market (via the ASX, for eg) it is common to see a divergence between market pricing and technical analyst/investor valuations (based on DCF and NPV). This difference, often known as the ‘market premium’ may be either positive or negative.
HighGrade Thought Leader Series: Management vs analysts
January 26 - February 1, 2011
IF mining company chief executives never talked to analysts, their industry might be better off.
Moriarty’s reflections
October 6 - 12, 2010
IN “Dr Moriarty baffled by Western zinc theory” in HighGrade on 22 September, your correspondent reported that the executive chairman of Terramin Australia was rather unhappy and somewhat bewildered with the market’s lack of appreciation of his company.
Rio's step change is already within reach
November 2 - 8, 2009
JOHN McGagh does a good job of talking up the value of technological developments and what Rio Tinto is doing. There are four points I would like to make. Firstly, it is worth considering what happened when this British company merged/took over the great Australian company CRA (does anyone remember them?).
Mines can't handle the truth
October 26 - November 1, 2009
I WORK for a major supplier to the mining industry and have been involved in the industry for 28 years and the past 13 years marketing capital equipment. Graham Lumley is heavily weighted to the mining company side in his arguments.
